


the day we thought about us

by red_flag



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Character Study?, F/F, Lovers to Friends to Lovers, Post-Island, Recovery?, and they do not stop taking to one another Jesus Christ you guys, they are a few years older
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28887066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_flag/pseuds/red_flag
Summary: Toni was twenty two and living in a huge ass house with her only company the trees and a lake. Each one of the girl’s had settled down into something that seemed whole and Toni… she watched them live and she was happy with their happiness but in reality, she was stuck into something nearly empty and dull and so very obviously missing something.“I think you should take a trip up here”.“W-What? I’m sorry, what?”
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 77
Kudos: 403
Collections: Finishedstoriesmine





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tried something. Is it good?? Is it bad?? There is never enough Post-Island fics, if you ask me.
> 
> But I don't know, it took great effort and some missing sleep.

Trigger Warnings; flashbacks of graphic violence, character kidnapping and abuse, physical abuse, blood and injury, unethical science and exploitation of teenagers, violation of human rights for some research purposes. 

They moved back to Minnesota in the early days of April, when cherry trees had taken a welcoming pink color and green seemed just a bit more vivid. The cold weather had also calmed down a few levels, making it just perfectly chilly for a jacket, but still not uncomfortable so. Some people said it was colder than usual, but Toni didn’t feel it as bad.

She’d turned eighteen a couple of days into the new – _real_ – investigation. Truth was, Toni had forgotten it was her birthday, too warry of the world and people and exhausted to the point of thinking about falling into a coma with pure fucking glee. After half a year on an island in the actual Bermuda Triangle – _I mean for fuck’s sake, Gretchen_ – and fourteen days in an underground concrete prison, _and another_ couple of days of running around Florida's lands until a city came to view – well, Toni had forgotten the day had come. An FBI agent had walked in Martha’s hospital room that day and had wished her a happy birthday with pitiful eyes and the rest of the girls froze on their chairs, seven pairs of eyes snapping at Toni with shock.

Toni had shrugged a second before Martha broke into delirious laughter and had pulled her down on the bed with a surprisingly strong grasp.

So, she and Martha returned to Minnesota when she was already an adult.

She got a house near the base of the mountains.

Because apparently – unlike Martha – the sounds of the city led to some serious panic attacks out of the fucking nowhere and a case of insomnia so bad that it led Toni to pass the fuck out on chairs and tables and during the weirdest times of the day, no matter the occasion. (She had yet to forgive herself for passing out a solid number of _three_ goddamned _times_ in Regan’s presence. First on the coffee shop’s chair while waiting for the other girl to arrive, a second time in that same coffee shop's chair when the girl had taken a short trip to the restroom, and a third time in the passenger’s seat of Regan’s familiar car. Like Jesus fuck, appearances and shit were a thing).

“ _Toni, hey, we are here”._

_“Shit, sorry”._

_“That was the third time. I don’t know if I should be impressed or worried”._

_“Yeah, huh, I stayed up last night. Good talk today. See you around, Regan”._

_“Take care”._

_“Sure thing”._

So, _the house_. It had been very easy to rent it with Cloe’s help. The social worker apparently felt like repaying Toni for getting kidnapped by some psycho researcher under her – legal – watch. It didn’t really bother Toni. The awful amount of paperwork was making her heart beat just a bit harder and it made her jaw clench just so. And she liked Cloe; in Toni’s presence, the woman had cursed more times than Martha had ever had in her life so far. Also, the woman didn’t treat Toni like a charity case but as an actual person with some very serious anger boiling underneath the surface.

Cloe was good.

Even after so many years, Toni sometimes called her in the morning.

 _The house though._ It was two stories and _huge_ for one person and it looked more like a cabin than a real house, due to the polished wood textures on the floors and those nice door and window frames. The rent was for a full family with two parents and three kids, who recently won the lottery or something but Toni didn’t mind. The Government Funds their team of lawyers had managed to establish in their bank accounts were… huh... yeah.

Toni didn’t mind the rent.

For some reason, she found the price fitting in a way, because the house had a back porch overlooking the lake and a part of the thick woods in the base of the mountain. The back garden was perfectly secured with a fence that somehow let Toni feel closer to the trees and completely safe from – _whatever._ The sounds of the city Martha grew to love didn’t drift over this neighborhood – here, the nature overtook urban spaces just perfectly and the sky was almost actually free of light pollution, making the stars come out at the night. At some point in the Island, the tiny dots above her head and the wind over water and between leaves had become home.

And the neighborhood was cute and quiet and full of old people who didn’t stare too much and were kind enough to greet Toni every morning by name. The house was only a twenty minute drive to the city and Martha’s own house. It had taken the girl a while to move out of her childhood home, the wheelchair and the nightmares forcing her put for a longer while. Once they had gotten back from Virginia, the Blackburn family house had brought to both Martha and Toni a final sense of warmth – a security they hadn’t felt in nearly a whole year. They had both stayed for those first months – and then Martha fell in love with Sam during physical therapy and Toni fell in love with the house after driving past it.

Toni had moved out then, but still drove over every day. They’d used to sit together on the front porch of the house, soaking in the sun or looking at the pounding rain, their hands locked together the whole time or until Toni fell asleep and involuntary curled away. Her best friend hadn’t lost the hope about the world, the bright way of looking at people, despite having witnessed the cruelty first hand. Martha hadn’t lost the appreciation of the future, despite the nightmares and slow moving and constant crumbling under those memories. Martha hadn’t grown numb, despite the way her legs couldn’t be moved anymore. Up until this day, years after the Island and the Bunker, Martha kept being Toni’s beacon through the flames sparkling up over her eyesight.

It’d be stupid to say Martha hadn’t changed; she had. There were times when Toni would arrive at her house and find Martha completely spaced out, the efforts of bringing her back growing more and more difficult. The sight of reporters and paparazzi made Martha flinch and grow cold and dark, asking Toni to push the wheelchair faster through the city to the car. Martha found something solid resting inside her soul, something sharp and heavy and it had been years since she’d quietly confessed to Toni that she really got it now; why the rage inside Toni grew dangerous and became untamed when the world hurt.

And even when Martha finally fought her own battles and had mastered a glare more threatening than any of Toni’s lashing out rage, the light in her smile and soul and eyes were the brightest thing to be seen. And Sam was just the same, eased in their body and gender and nature in the kindest way possible, fueling the light and hope inside Martha as well and just… the two of them made the world just slightly better.

Toni couldn’t be prouder.

They had returned to school together in the beginning of the New Year, both eighteen but wanting the high school degree. For whatever reason, Martha had said some words and Toni had agreed and the next month they drove over the familiar building with the ghost of the Island still hovering behind their back. It wasn’t a good experience and more than once had Toni decided to drop the fuck out and lock herself in her new quiet house and stare at the trees outside the windows.

The stares had been heavy and the muffled chatter rang louder than any kind of past screams. The TV still mumbled on and on about the experiment and tragedy and the limits of science and the devastation for these eight teenagers. As if they knew what it felt like to cut your friend’s hand with an axe to stop the rest of her hand from rotting away and killing her on the sand. As if they could understand what it felt like to retch and shake uselessly on cold concrete after someone three times your size hit you with a Taser.

They had walked back into the familiar building and Toni had felt as if she was five again and walking into an orphanage. No anger then – just this chocking helplessness and fear of this terrifying place and those people. Martha had found Toni after first period, her own eyes dark and skin pale and hands grasping at the wheels of her chair tightly, and Toni hadn’t waited for the word before getting them the fuck out of that place. Regan had first appeared then, eyes wide and lower lip caught under her teeth and Toni had almost thrown up right there in the parking lot, heart all too fast and breathing all too short and then a phone was thrown in her hands and a feminine voice was talking from the other side of the call and Toni had walked away to slowly crumble on the concrete ground and sob on the phone, while listening to Shelby sing with a shaky voice.

Martha had been worried.

Even _Toni_ had been fucking worried.

Therapy had been unexpected. But at the same time, it had been kinda good. It took yelling and _a lot_ of frustration to find the right one, but after stumbling on this black man named Philip… Toni had actually kept coming back to his office despite the annoyance each hour brought. It might have helped that he had long, raven black hair tied in thick braids that spilled down his back and shoulders. He wore glasses and had a lopsided smirk planted on his round face. He laughed a lot and played basketball in a community center downtown that Toni had visited a few times only to find him firmly sat on the ground and laughing his ass off while the others played. And Philip had a very small pin with a rainbow flag on a board full of equal interesting lapel pins of fucking _everything_. In conclusion, her therapist was kinda cool and more than a decent guy.

After graduating high school, Philip gave Toni a fucking ridiculous orange pin of a pizza slice that wore sunglasses and a smirk and Toni kept coming back to his office.

It made Martha proud.

It made the girls proud.

-

That didn’t mean Philip wasn’t a pain in the fucking ass most of the time.

_“Looking in the past year, how do you find your life, Toni?”_

_“Fine. Why are you asking me that?”_

_“Well, I am your therapist”._

_“Because you rarely get emotional with my shit”._

_“Yeah, I think it is time though”._

_“To get emotional with my shit?”_

_“You don’t really have a lot of shit, Toni”._

_“Don’t… Don’t get patronizing, dude”._

_“Sorry! Sorry. You playing basketball this weekend?”_

_“I don’t fucking know. Jesus, you are so weird some fucking times”._

-

After spending her whole life without a steady family, those girls managed to become one for Toni. Even despite the tough memories each of their faces brought to the surface, there wasn’t any chance of Toni going on with her life without a connection to those seven girls. When the Feds (the real Feds) had come, they had stuck together this time, their trust thin and patience even thinner. The safe-house FBI had provided for a while in Virginia was a whole damn apartment building, with apartments big enough for double the number of people. They had been given apartments for two, but after the first fifteen minutes, Toni was opening the door to six exhausted faces and nodding at them to get in. Martha had completely relaxed at the sight of them filling the room and finally fell asleep the moment Toni slipped back under the blanket next to her.

Leah and Fatin and Dot had moved the second bed in the room. Nora and Shelby and Rachel had pushed in a double couch from the nice living room, opening it up with little effort before collapsing as a pile on it and completely passing out as well. Toni had waiting until all of them were asleep before closing her eyes as well, not knowing the memory would stick this clear after so many years.

After the official investigation had been finished and the first round of trials had begun and finished with the blonde psycho being sent to goddamned jail, they had been allowed to return home. The feeling of relief had been something each of them felt when they were told outside the fancy room of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Because at that point, and in some ways, they just… they had needed to take a step back and get away from one another. Try to rebuild whatever was left to be rebuilt at that point.

Easier said than done though. _Dawn of Eve_ had become a federal case and, with each piece of the puzzle being sneaked out of the investigation’s confidentiality, the media had set up a goddamned feast of horror and speculation. People had been opening up the TV and papers for a long while just to find out what the fuck was going on with those missing girls and those misleading routes the FBI kept taking. Because of course, Gretchen had taken any protection she could find and build, and lead after lead hauled the investigation to one hundred different paths away from Florida and the Bunker and the Island. It had been enough to have the federal case bursting out worldwide, the depth and complexity of Gretchen’s contacts and funds linking to some places very high up.

The first month – that beautiful April with the blooming cherry trees – had been hell. It’d been impossible to keep their heads down and away from eyesight, cameras constantly clicking, reporters and people always coming up to them for a few words, for a phone number, for efforts to extract a few comments on the case and the Island and Bunker and – and – and – and – and – it went on and on and on. For some months, until the press calmed the fuck out and got off of their backs, the real human contact the eight of them seemed to have had been each other and their families. Phone calls, group chat, video calls, even letters at the very beginning (Leah’s idea, which was quickly let go due to the amount of fucking mail they got every day from all over the fucking world, because who the actual fuck published their house’s addresses, Toni swore she would give them a solid punch in their stupid face if she ever found out).

It had taken a while for the people’s craziness to calm down. Toni had kept pacing then – almost trapped inside the Blackburn’s house and backyard. She had felt the worry and panic about the others like a grasp around her dry throat – a lot like the way Alex’s fists had once grasped her. The long phone calls had been the only thing keeping both her and Martha sane in the house. The only reason she’d ever missed facetime was her having collapsed somewhere due to exhaustion. Martha would sent them a photo of her sleeping on the back porch to let them know and Toni had always apologized and made sure to call each one after and talk about half an hour and find out what she’d missed.

There had been no need to worry so much though. The first three months had been numb and new for all of them and it had taken a while until they started to stand on steady feet. In the end, they were okay; they had ended up just fine. Therapy and physical exercises became routine for all of them. Government Funds had been enough to rebuild their life.

Fatin had indeed moved to LA after a while, made a living of playing the cello for various orchestras. She did good – real fucking good – and Toni remembered the first time she’d listened to Fatin playing because she had cried for _hours_ after finishing the video the girl had sent in their group chat. She’d deny it until the day they laid her corpse to the ground – all the while cursing Martha’s eager mouth for spilling the truth to Fatin in a scandalous way; behind Toni’s back. Fatin had called then, cooing and giggling and Toni told her to fuck off before ending the call with Fatin’s laugh echoing in the mostly empty house.

Nora had been pardoned for playing a role in the experiment that first month in the Island. That “out-of-schedule” _(Gretchen had mumbled the words with confidence and a fake sympathetic voice that made anger snap inside Toni and both her and Rachel had leaped up on their feet, cursing from the stands until security came in the courtroom)_ shark attack had been one of the many turning points of what had happened and it sure had been Nora’s moment of realizing the sickness of what this project really was. _Taken advantaged while grieving the loss of a significant other,_ the lawyer had said and Nora had broken in front of the court, when she said the story of how Gretchen had approached her with a fake story about a son, who had never existed. When jury had called out innocent in the fancy courtroom full of mahogany pieces of furniture, the seven girls had barely kept back from jumping over the railing to embrace Nora in a group hug full of cheerful sobs. After a year of federal monitoring – or something like that – she had gotten to college in Michigan, setting up a good life there and she was now going through the last year of her studies before getting a degree.

Rachel had slowly gotten back to swimming. Nowadays she even tried diving for a bit of fun. She’d gotten back to school as well, finished, stayed over to New York with her parents, trying to find a path for herself. Paralympics had been a starting point, but it was quickly let go after Rachel realized she wanted to swim with no pressure on her shoulders. Apparently she spent hours of running, swimming, playing soccer with a community team, found a great group of friends and a small apartment in the city. She didn’t choose to go to university, didn’t try to hunt down a scholarship and it was fine; they had never seen Rachel glowing before, with an ease and a smile and a neutral purpose of just… _living_.

Same went with Leah. It had taken her a while to get out of a dark place in her head, but eventually, she had managed. Dropped out of school after a couple of efforts and had focused back into writing a mixed style of emotional and detached descriptions and analysis of every day she lived or thought off. The first book had taken them by surprise and the video chat that day had been a mess of yelling curses and screaming laughter and proud tears. Leah had an apartment of her own, and a favorite library-café, and a permanent smile on her face, a teasing and intelligent nature they had all grown to adore.

Dot had managed to get out of high school as well. Had kept her father’s house and built a life in and out of it. Used the amount of money each of them had been given by government funds to start a quiet coffee shop in the center of her hometown, managing to keep it away from the reporters’ constant snooping in on their lives and getting more than a couple of regulars around. Because apparently, Dot’s espresso was one of the kind and the rest of Texas seemed to think so as well. There was literally no way to catch Dot on the phone during morning and afternoon hours and the sound of the voicemail always brought a smile to anyone calling.

Shelby had… She had moved in with Dot after a few months. Being to real hell and back did not seem to ease any of her father’s beliefs on the church version of it and Shelby had been through enough to keep any façade raised for his sake. It had taken three comments about the girls and one month of staying under his polished roof and Shelby had been packing up some clothes and knocking on Dot’s door that very afternoon. No one had been surprised, and at night, Toni had called after the late hours just so Shelby could simply listen to her fall asleep on the phone. Three years ago, Shelby’s parents had gotten a divorce and the blonde had been able to rebuild a relationship with her younger siblings and mom, away from that house.

-

It had been four years now, since the beautiful April and the official end of the trials. Twenty two came with some surprising back pain that made Toni and Martha laugh hysterically when talking about it. It came with a routine and a steady crappy job and an ever crappier income at the cinema’s back desk. There was just something about pulling up the wallpapers of each movie coming out before anyone else, of being sat behind the control panels and putting up the movies for the people to watch. It was a job that came with movement and free popcorn and quiet walks in the night city after the end of the shift. Behind the cinema’s control panels, Toni could not be stared at, but she could indeed watch the people around, ease at the sight of them.

It was a good life though. A quiet one – _maybe a bit too quiet according to Martha and Sam._ Toni might have a lot of buzzing energy inside her body, a very impressive record of snapping when anything felt just _slightly_ off but the aggressive frustration had changed into thin patience and solid confidence that – if someone pushed, she’d be able to surely push back just as much. Sometimes the attitude stopped them from going that far and it was enough for the rage to calm back down into a gentle purr.

Martha said she was proud of the life Toni had set out, but there was always something like nervous worry underneath the words. Calm Toni wasn’t something either of them knew how to deal with, but were too tired to do anything other than welcome her.

_“You are isolating yourself, Toni”._

_“Marty. I’m fine”._

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Yeah. I promise_ ”.

Sometime, it _kind_ of felt like wasting away time and then one look at the forest or the night sky or a deep breath of the wind and the thought eased away to the back of Toni’s head.

But still, Toni knew it wasn’t permanent. Nothing in her life had ever been and the nice neighborhood and the small house in the base of the gorgeous mountains – those couldn’t be it. However, when aggression and rage always came with Toni’s knowledge that everything would at some point go away, the thought now came with controlled patience, expected and waited for. She made peace with the prospect of all of it would melt away at some point.

So when the call came, surprisingly, Toni didn’t freak out as much as the others did.

The voice was cruelly sweet as it delivered the purpose of the call – _knowing_ it was a big deal and obviously trying to downplay it. It brought a raspy laugh out of Toni, one shoulder knocking against the wall next to the back door to hold up her suddenly weak body, dark eyes staring out at the bare trees autumn had stripped from their leaves. The voice brought anger, but this one was redder than any other rage she had felt before; it was controlled in a way that made it more dangerous than the old bomb ready to go off at any moment. This anger was holding a red axe; white socks stained with blood; it was stepping on glass and _running_ ; it was seeing Dot crumble on the ground because of a simple syringe filled with sedative. It was stumbling into a high ceiling room full of computers and paper boxes and seeing herself on the big wall screen, hungry and in pain and sunburned and _monitored_.

It was like the anger who had once made Toni strut up to this boy perched on top of a desk – scared and panicked and holding onto a notebook with personality analysis on each of them – yelling things she couldn't remember and swinging the axe in a narrow way and with enough strength to have it stuck in the side of his ribcage, a moment before the security guards showed up with blood running down their faces, guns pointing and threats about laying their dirty hands on the girls, hurting more than anything else.

The woman’s words hurt as much as those threats.

“Kindly speaking, fuck right the hell off, ma’am”.

It had been four years since Toni had broken something in a fit of rage and regretted it right after. She left the broken phone on foot of the three steps and went back inside the quiet house, not caring enough to be gentle with the back door. The _bang_ shook her heart as if someone had swung a hammer right onto it and Toni slowly let her forehead knock on the wall, feeling boiling rage at the bottom of her chest. It grew up and started to slip through the muscles of her arms to settle down to her fingers and forcing them into fists.

 _They wanted them to go back to the Island_.

She used her fists to push herself away from the wall, patting across the kitchen to the bar and the laptop resting onto it. On perfect timing, that three years ago would make Toni jerk back with suspicious and fear, a facetime call started to ring across the screen, Rachel’s smirking face in the middle.

“ _You got the call_ ”.

“Yeah”.

The image was shaky and Rachel was somewhere outside, brown eyes flickering around over the camera, a grey hood pulled over her head. White headphones were popped in the girl’s ears and a layer of sweat was covering her forehead. When Rachel glanced back on the phone and Toni’s face, a smirk started to appear on her lips – without being able to erase the concern in her gaze.

“ _What did you break?_ ”

“Fuck you right in the ass, Rachel”.

It brought a laugh from the athlete and Toni had to bite down on her tongue to keep from smiling, her anger having lessened into something tense and chocking and buzzing. The thoughts had taken over and she cursed at the reminder of the broken phone outside. Martha would be calling any minute now.

“So we all got it?”

Rachel huffed and the smile was gone and replaced by anxiety. _“Nora and I took it at the same time_ ”, she said, clearing her throat and taking a seat on a stadium’s stands. Probably the stadium she went for a run two times a week. “ _Different voices_ ”.

Toni nodded and unfocusedly looked down at her own bouncing leg. “What did you say?”

 _“What the hell do you think? Fuck no_ ”.

“Nora told them ‘fuck no’?”

If Rachel was in this house, she’d use something heavy to hit Toni with.

“ _With more words and the impressive deadpanning voice_ ”.

It made the corners of her lips twist up. “I have to go to Marty”.

“ _Oh, this excuse got cheap five years ago, asshole_ ”.

Toni’s eyes widened. “I mean it!”

“ _Sure thing. Fuck, I knew I should have called Leah first_ ”.

“Pleasure as always to talk to you, Rachel”.

“ _Screw you, Toni_ ”.

They ended the call and Toni leaned back on the barstool, chuckling to herself. Somewhere in the other corner of the country, Rachel was doing the same – the athlete’s own dark eyes losing some light as the memories came rushing back like a wave on a rocky shore.

-

“It was a proposition”, Martha tried, but even her own voice had an edge on it. Unlike Toni, Martha had let a long pause linger before she declined the offer with a few quiet words and a wish for a good afternoon.

They had indeed ended up crying again.

She was curled up on the edge of the couch on the porch, wrapped in her mom’s jacket and watching the gentle rain fall on the ground a few steps away. One of the cats was sat on Toni’s chest, purring comfortingly as if he felt the tension in the woman gently petting him. There was a delicious smell of something being cooked by Martha’s partner, the scent softly hovering in the air and taking away the last of Toni’s tension. It wouldn’t be surprising or unusual if she fell right asleep on this couch somewhere in the middle of this conversation. It didn’t help that Martha had a hand in her hair, mindlessly caressing and lulling her straight to sleep.

Maybe she should get a cat herself.

“It was a very much shitty proposition to do”, Toni mumbled with a voice raspier than usual, focusing on the cat’s purring and Martha’s presence next to her. Sam would be out in a few to sit on the other end of the couch and make Toni stick her toes underneath their thighs.

“You talked with the others?”

“Just Rachel. Dot and Shelby are working and Fatin is in rehearsal. They probably didn’t even get the call; I don’t want to tell them when they call back”.

“…Do you want me to do it?”

At the accusing words, Toni opened one eye to look over at Martha’s amused and unimpressed gaze. “Yes, please”, her voice came out quiet and slightly whinnying and Martha laughed at her openly, bringing out a smile and a gentle huff. The cat’s purr became stronger under the spasm movement of Toni’s chest.

Toni deeply sighed, feeling a headache growing.

Martha sighed as well, shaking her head and looking out at the street and the few cars passing by. More than one person paused in front of the house to wave at Martha with a grin before jogging away again and every time, Toni gave a very impressive fight with a smile that kept trying to appear.

“Remember when the first plane flew over the Island?” Martha suddenly said and it was enough for Toni to go numb. Her eyes opened to stare at the wooden roof of the house’s front porch, listened to the way the wind hissed through the leaves, the sound breaking by the dull and slow hum of a car’s engine driving by. It was one of the few times the temperatures sipped right through Toni’s clothes and skin and bones to cool her whole body rather harshly. A shudder crushed through her, reminding her of the way the sun burned and the way sand comped through the dry strands of hair. She remembered Shelby – shaky and as numb as Toni felt in this moment four years after, uncharacteristically curled inwards – panic and raw agony in her green eyes. She remembered how her lips felt pressed on blonde’s; remembered the deep dread of Dot’s words; remembered the hope that motherfucking plane had brought over, only for it to evaporate a week later, when Rachel was shaking and looking worse than death, passed out and feverish on the airplane’s chair.

“We were so excited to come back and become famous”, Martha’s voice cut through and brought a thankful relief as that trail of memories were cut off. “We pretended to do an interview, remember?”

She did and she didn’t. Most of the answers had faded in the back of her mind – _except, maybe, Fatin had said something funny then and had made the giddy feeling of hope take root just a bit more firmly._ Toni could not really remember the words, but she was sure it was something sexual and obnoxious, and the simple thought of that brought the smile out of her and the dark eyes finally shifted away from the ceiling to look at Martha.

“We were just kids then, huh?” Martha sighed, looking at the street again, her gaze lost in the past. “We wanted a photoshoot crew to be in the gates of some airport and we wanted interviews and –“

Toni’s voice came out creaking and breaking over the quiet words. “Nothing had really happened then. It was early on. We couldn’t have known”.

Martha nodded and Toni saw so much of Mrs. Blackburn in her. Being twenty two did nothing to change or lessen the longing for some motherly care when their mind turned too dark. For a moment, Toni thought of taking Martha to the car and drive over to her childhood home just because Mrs. Blackburn was there and she’d offer some comfort.

“Telling FBI what had happened was easy”, Martha kept going and Toni flinched, because, no, it had been like just when Faber and Young interviewed her in that concrete room. Having to do the talking again to another agency – even if it was legit and real and not taking advantage of teens just for goddamned research – it had been so very difficult. Toni might be envious of the way Martha hadn’t been through that; hadn’t been through them picking at their brains and feelings and memories and extracting info.

“But this… this feels wrong”.

Toni felt the anger starting at the pit of her chest again and it’d be wise to stop this conversation before it burst out. But Martha seemed to need to peel away the situation and so Toni pushed just a bit more. “How did they call it? A participatory…”

“Participatory Crime Documentary”.

Toni snorted without meaning to. The cat meowed softly on top of her before stretching in front of her face and jumping away on the floor. She looked at the animal shake its head and start to lick down the grey fur, getting comfortable near Martha’s feet.

“Fancy stupid words for ‘we want to make a documentary on the biggest case of the decade and use you to get the money going’”.

“Good way of running a business”, Martha mumbled to no one in particular, but the words seemed to ease some tension from Toni’s body, who laughed quietly. “You think they talked with her as well?”

It… it wasn’t the right thing to say at this moment. The words made Toni’s body completely lock up and the vibration of the hiding rage knocked straight through her nerves and limps and mind. _Fuck_.

She grunted once, swinging her legs on the floor and onto her untied Vans, quickly pushing them on and shuffling around to get her feet secured.

“Toni”.

She shook her head at Martha, whose eyes were dark and understanding and patient.

“I…” _Fuck, this was a rough tone_. She grunted again and cleared her throat once, twice. Toni managed to lower her voice into something steady and smooth. “I need to go”.

“You will drive?”

“Take a walk and then, yeah”.

“Text me when you get home”.

“Yeah, yeah”.

Martha’s neighborhood was busy, but domestically so. People were jogging and walking dogs and there was an actual corner coffee shop at the end of the road. A small park was set up right behind it, a few kids playing soccer and scream curses at one another. Cars came and go and the people chatter echoed in the area like a part of the environment. A lot of movements though. Working at the cinema had helped Toni feel at ease walking around them, the stares and comments and efforts to talk to her having died down by now, the picture of her face having faded from their mind. No one batted an eye at her now.

Her _thankfully working_ phone started to buzz in the pocket of her jacket and Toni offered a grieving look at the messed up screen, before swiping a finger over it and allowing the smile to form. There was still some frustration kicking at her heart and lungs, but she breathed out and offered a slow greeting.

“ _There are like a million missed calls in both mine and Dot’s phones, when happened?_ ”

Shelby’s voice had never lost the ability of smoothing the last of the tension inside Toni. It left her tired and slightly resigned and in need of the blonde woman wrapped up around her. The blonde woman sounded breathy over the phone, obviously still at work in Dot’s coffee shop, but the bright tone wasn’t overcome by worry just yet. It brought the usual warmth all over, the same protectiveness and care for Shelby and the rest of the girls.

“ _Toni? You there?_ ”

It shook her out of it. “Hey, um, I’m here, sorry, some agency called us and offered to make a documentary about ‘our experience’ and if we agreed to talk to them, they offered a trip back to the Island for the shooting”.

There was a beat of silence on the other line and Toni kept walking on the smooth sidewalk, letting Shelby process the words. It was not the best way to break the news, but, well, sugarcoating wasn’t Toni’s forte. If she could even call it sugarcoating, more like… it would be _polite_ to smooth out the blow, but… well.

Toni flinched at the shaky breath Shelby let out on the speaker and cleared her throat, continued to speak. “So, we like… freaked out and started to call everyone. Rachel was being an asshole, no surprise there, I think Nora might have cursed them out on the phone, Leah broke into hysterical laughter and then started sobbing. I think Fatin is in rehearsal so she doesn’t know and, huh… I guess you and Dot just found out. And I kind of broke my phone and Martha is thinking about the fucking psycho again”.

“ _Y-You broke your phone?_ ”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Shelbs”.

“ _I’m not… actually surprised_ ”, Shelby breathed out something heavy, chuckled something dark. “ _So, that is some news. I would feel a pang of sympathy for whoever called you, but, huh –“_

“It was a shit reason to call?”

“ _Yeah, yeah_ ”.

“You okay?”

“ _I’m… yeah, I am still processing_ ”, Shelby laughed and Toni smiled down at the sidewalk. “ _You weren’t kind when dropping the bomb, were you?_ ”

“No, huh, sorry, but the boom wouldn’t be any kinder even if I was”.

“ _True_ ”.

There were a few more moments of silence, while Toni walked and Shelby did whatever she was doing. At some point, the sounds of people and glass clicking together had faded in the background, leaving Shelby somewhere quieter. The silence between them was comfortable, between calling just to listen to the other fall asleep on the other side of the line and calling just to ease something too rough and too dark pressing them down – the silence had become known territory. It had become their thing.

Because after the feelings of been left on a deserted island to be _studied_ and after the feeling of finding out they had been trapped underground with no way to get to the surface and away from those psychoes with no moral code, the intense care and love between the two of them never lessened. Four years later and so many miles apart, the feeling took root and grew and solidified in both of them.

They… it was complicated.

They weren’t in a relationship or exclusive or something, but at the same time, they… Even the thought of finding anyone else made them both flinch and shake their heads and think of the other. At the same time, the events of the Bunker didn’t let them ease around one another for long. One of them was bound to look at the other and flash back to a narrow hallway. And then there was the rush of running on deserted highways and bare spaces of land, feet trembling and hands pulling at arms and clothes to keep the other going until that house appeared in front of them just as the night fell.

But still, between the beginning of the Island and the end of the trials, there was a point that Toni only felt Shelby’s hands dragging her away from Marth’s unconscious body, yelling at her how they needed to run; a point that Shelby looked at Toni and saw her swing that goddamned axe towards Thom and sticking the blade on the guy’s ribcage. Something broke at those moments – not just between the two of them, they had all done things to get out of that Bunker, things that had drove them away from one another for four years.

The love and care and protectiveness hadn’t lessened. But something had placed itself in the middle and for some time, they had needed to get away from one another.

And maybe, being comforted by the cruelly sweet voice reminding her of the fact that the Island was a very real place, in this very real world and their very real life, kicked something out of Toni’s head.

Toni stopped walking and took in a deep breathe, realizing Shelby had been talking this whole time and she hadn’t heard a fucking word. Some customer and something about expresso and cream and Toni looked up at the darkening sky, finding the moon staring down at her, familiar and steady.

“Hey, um”, Toni cut Shelby’s ranting without giving her a heads up or waiting for her to finish the sentence. She cringed at herself, but Shelby's silence wasn't heavy and so she rushed to put the words out. “I think you should take a trip up here”.

“ _W-What? I’m sorry, what?_ ”

Toni nodded to herself, gulped and said, “I would like you to buy a plane ticket and come to Minnesota”.

“ _J-Just like that?_ ”

Toni was twenty two and living in a huge ass house with her only company the trees and a lake. Each one of the girl’s had settled down into something that seemed whole and Toni… she watched them live and she was happy with their happiness but in reality, she was stuck into something nearly empty and dull and so very obviously _missing_ something. She’d never been one to stick with many friends and the need for some attention was taken away by the Island and mental exhaustion. Basketball never felt the same anymore. Martha and Sam were enough people to have in her life. The pointless job at the cinema had become an equally pointless routine of filling up the time she wasn’t sleeping on her couch. And honestly, the hiking trips in the woods and lake were the only pure thing Toni had in her life in Minnesota at the moment.

Even the house.

In the four years, it never became home.

“After four years, I think it is time”, she said and her raspy voice was confident. “Or we could… we could go wherever you like, I mean, nothing ties me here. Martha will be happy to have me out of that house and being with someone, you know?”

“ _You want to be with me?_ ”

“I do”.

“ _It’s been a long time, Toni_ ”.

“Does it matter?”

Shelby took in a shaky breath again before replying. “ _I will come to you_ ”.

“You will?”

“ _Yes, give me two days to short out the goodbyes. Nothing ties me here either and you actually have your own house_ ”.

She was grinning ear to fucking ear, in the middle of a street that meant nothing to her, in the cold October weather of Minnesota, under a half moon and the stars that started to pick out after the sunset. “For… For real?”

Shelby laughed. “ _For real. Should have happened sooner”._

“Martha is gonna be ecstatic”.

“ _And you?_ ”

“Me? Oh, I love you so fucking much”.

Shelby’s breathy laugh was answer enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each and every one of you have been incredibly loving. So here you go, the second part some of you asked so nicely. I wrote this instead of sketching a museum's layout so, pleace, be kind with any language mistakes!
> 
> I really hope it lived up to any expectations you might have. Happy reading!

Trigger Warnings; flashbacks of graphic violence, character kidnapping and abuse, physical abuse, blood and injury, unethical science and exploitation of teenagers, violation of human rights for some research purposes, mention of self-harm (nothing graphic tho)

There had still been a twist on her muscles, when they finally landed on Texas in April. Dottie’s steady body had felt warm next to her own though the entire flight, the girl’s head lowered on Shelby’s shoulder, who – _for the first time of her life_ – managed to tower a few inches taller than her friend, due to the relentless tension in her spine. She had been longingly envious of the way Dot managed to fall asleep at some point during the flight, and she hadn’t dared to move an inch from her seated position.

In that way, nothing in her body and mind could have a chance to break.

The _Dawn of Eve_ plane had never crashed, the shakiness was manufactured and the pilot’s doing. _Michele_ , the old man was called – _breathing and smiling and sickeningly proud of the project he’d helped Gretchen Klein with –_ and Shelby’s hands had grasped at the mahogany chair she had been sat on to keep the bile in. Next to her, Leah had let out a low growling sound and Fatin’s hand had snapped to the other girl’s tightly holding on. After Gretchen’s long testimony and the amount of yelling Rachel, Toni, Leah and Dot had broken into during specific parts of it, the courthouse’s security and the judge hadn’t been as kind.

It was interesting, the way it’d felt real – the crash – when it had never actually happened. The fear had stuck like nails in Shelby’s hands that couldn’t stop twisting when her thoughts walked down that path. Being on another plane had made Shelby’s muscles lock up to the point of physical pain, cutting her breathing short and deep and unsteady.

Her back had sweetly hurt when they arrived and got off; her shoulders slumped under the aching cramps of the tensed muscles, and because of the ghosts hovering over them – not touching, but still heavy.

_Dear Lord, they had been so heavy._

Her fingers hadn’t stopped twisting and pressing and rubbing against one another the whole time, turning her knuckles raw and her skin bright pink. No matter how much Dottie gently patted at the twisting fingers with a hand, the movements hadn’t been eased. Not with them there hovering, not with dull anger slow dancing and pocking at various viscera like it was pointy sticks.

It had all stopped for a bit, when checkpoints flashed past and security greeted them to Texas, and Dad– _Dave_ walked in front of them and Shelby had finally been able to suck in a deep goddamned breath. Dot had wordlessly slipped a hand in hers, holding tight enough to hurt, before letting go again.

“ _We need to drive Dottie home_ ”.

“ _I can just call an Uber_ ”.

“ _Please, I want to make sure_ ”.

“ _Nonsense, Dot, I will drive you_ ”.

Dot had nodded and followed Dave Goodkind to the most polished car in the parking lot. It had smelled like leather and humidity and lotion and Shelby had been unable to breathe again. This time, she had been the one to reach over and hold on Dot’s hand.

“ _There is always a second bed in here_ ”, Dot had said outside the house’s front door. “ _Think about it_ ”.

“ _I will think about it_ ”, Shelby had replied with a steady voice, which completely cracked around the next words. “ _Take care, Dottie_ ”.

“ _Stop that. I will see you soon enough again, dude_ ”.

Dottie had hugged her for a long time, a few last moments of clear air before Shelby had been forced right back in another type of prison. Her fingers had clenched around her friend’s hoodie and she had let a few tears to slide out as one of Dot’s hands caressed the back of her head. Some golden strands had started to grow, spilling around in an honest to God mess of untamed short hair and the black beanie she’d worn had been the only thing keeping them in place.

Right back into the car and been drove back to her childhood home brought the same twistiness to Shelby. Dave had been quiet on the way, except a quiet tune he’d been humming to himself ever since Virginia and in the second week of the FBI investigation, when their parents had been allowed to visit. Despite him being there, in a hotel pretty close to the safe-house, the two of them hadn’t talked about what had happened. Shelby had either been in FBI’s station for most of the day and only craved sleep that night, and when not, she’d rushed to ask about the twins, her Mom, the city, his job, the school – anything and everything except the Bunker and Island and the exact _why_ she had been on that motherfucking plane in the first place.

She had known the conversation would happen as soon as Jill was in the room with them and Shelby was finally asked the questions both her and Dave had been avoiding to approach.

Each time, the thought of that conversation settled the same lip-curling anger deep in Shelby’s chest.

Fifteen minutes after seeing their parents in the hotel’s lobby, Fatin had yelled; _“You sent me there! You, you son of a bitch, and you dare come visit me without an apology?! Whatever shit happened to me on that Island is on you, you fucking asshole!”_

Fatin’s father had curled inwards and had clenched his jaw and her mother had nodded with tears and an apology in her dark eyes, hands reaching to touch Fatin and been shaken off violently. Shelby had pulled back from Dave’s hug at the first sense of sound and she had completely stilled, watching Fatin bang a hand on the table – palm open and rough, shouting in both English and Farsi, words delivering the hurt and agony the eight of them had been through like direct slaps.

Shelby hadn’t looked at Dave.

But the rest of the girls had had and Shelby had shaken her head once, a warning in her eyes and they – except Fatin’s tearful eyes – had turned back to their people right away.

The memory had made another wave of warmth and coldness spread through her at the exact same time. Because she might had used a gun to shoot Alex and make him let go of Toni, and she might had punched Faber straight in the gut with a strong fist that had surprised both of them, but Shelby wasn’t Fatin and the words of her parents’ church had taken a poisonous root inside her mind. She might had stood in front of Gretchen Klein and spat out words that their reminder made Shelby internally cringe, but she didn’t know if she could hold herself up in front of her father. She hadn’t known if she could fight this battle.

The anger and chocking anxiety and headache had eased, when two tiny figures crashed against her body as soon as she stepped through the familiar front door, making one foot slip back to find some balance for the shaken body. The world had seemed to slow down into something buzzing and unrushed and so _full_ that Shelby had not fight the way her knees bent down, pulling her to the height of these two angels God had sent do great her in this house.

 _“You cut your hair!_ ”

“ _I did! Do you like it?_ ”

“ _Yes! Shelby, we were worried you wouldn’t be back!_ ”

“ _But here I am now. You got so much taller!_ ”

“ _God brought your sister home, guys_ ”.

She had tried not to flinch and instead let herself be hugged by her cheering siblings and her tearful Mom, all the while craving to reach back and get the fuck out of that house with the ghosts and demons. She had tried to let the moment linger for a long time, borrowing herself in the arms of her lovingly oblivious mother and wishing the ghosts gone for a bit more.

God hadn’t brought her home. He hadn’t been able to reach His light through thick concrete under the ground. He hadn’t been able to reach through Shelby’s fear and anger.

When they’d found out, the revelation coming as a room full of computers and a huge screen on the wall that showed Toni sitting on the sand next to Martha’s unresponsive body – sunburned and hungry and broken by the grief and pain and _monitored_ – the anger in Shelby hadn’t been God’s doings. Lord only did beautiful and nothing of the way Shelby had gotten her girls out had been beautiful. It had been dark and dripping red liquid, it had tasted like vinegar and iron, it had felt like Hell’s fire, it had rang in her ears like a woman’s screaming voice.

Shelby and seven other girls had brought themselves home, with no help from any God.

-

It had taken a while for them to get phones. When Jill quietly placed a white box in front of Shelby on her bedside table, she had sighed deeply and tiredly lifted her head from the pillows to retrieve it. Shelby had looked over at the laptop on the desk that daringly stared back at her the last couple of days. It had been then, when she had finally approached it. Slow enough to make someone think the devise had been a living and biting creature or something.

Every account Shelby had had on social media had been overflown with countless text messages, emails, notifications of any kind and posts of prayers and images of flowers and the sun and whatever the hell people thought it had been appropriate post and make themselves feel better. Most of the names, Shelby could recognize, but they’d brought an even deeper dread in the pit of the stomach to the point of rushing to close up the pages on the screen and…

_Two new friend requests. Fatin Jadmani has added you in a group chat with six other people._

**_Fatin Jadmani (Monday 12:36)_ : **I cannot believe you, you assholes.  
 ** _Fatin Jadmani (Monday 12:36)_ : **I let it go for a week but here we are.  
 ** _Fatin Jadmani (Monday 12:37)_ : **You better get phones soon enough.  
 ** _Fatin Jadmani (Monday 12:37)_ : **Or I’m rebelling in this shit house. ** _  
Fatin Jadmani (Monday 12:40)_ : **I expected better from at least half of you.  
 ** _Fatin Jadmani (Tuesday 18:15)_ : **MARTHA BLACKBURN I SEE YOU.  
 ** _Fatin Jadmani (Tuesday 18:15)_ : **YOU BETTER ANSWER IN THIS CHAT.  
 ** _Martha Blackburn (Tuesday 18:18)_ : **HELLO FATIN <3 I AM SO HAPPY TO TALK TO YOU AGAIN  
 ** _Fatin Jadmani (Tuesday 18:20)_ :** YES BITCH I HAVE MISSED YOUR FACE SO MUCH. _  
 **Martha Blackburn (Tuesday 18:20)**_ **:** WE HAVE MISSED YOUR FACE TOO <3

There had been a photo sent after this; a photo of a house’s warm interior, wood and colorful curtains and blankets thrown over the back of a couch. But what made Shelby’s breathing cut off had been the image of Toni, who sat on the edge of the wide couch, her head turned upward as if she’d been talking to someone standing out of the frame. Brunette waving hair had been let down free, falling around Toni’s face, but still leaving in sight the curve of her clenched jawline.

She had been wrapped up in a jacket despite being inside the house, hands around her own torso, long fingers grasping at the thick fabric. Martha's legs had been placed on her lap comfortably, a pink blanket over both of them, an open bag of chips on top of the blanket and something like chocolate sticking out from behind a corner.

The messages went on for a while after, getting more and more obnoxious with each capitalized letter, but Shelby couldn’t read them without returning back to this photo of Toni curled up on the side of this couch. She had only looked away to wipe the relieved, heavy tears sliding down her pale cheeks and to answer to Fatin’s capitalized curses of why she’d been taking so damn long to write something back as a greeting.

 ** _Shelby Goodkind (Wednesday 14:21)_ : **I'm so happy you are okay guys  
 ** _Martha Blackburn (Wednesday 14:21)_ : **SHELBY <333 WE HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH

At last, everyone had gotten phones and had visited their old socials – most of them logged in because of curiosity. The group chat had become a daily part. Most of them could not get out of the house, due to the reporters waiting for any of them to be within talking reach, and so the chat and video calls had turned into the most socializing they had done since getting back. And it had felt good to talk to them, to keep the link that had been, and had needed to be, broken for the time they needed to start working inwards.

The first time Toni didn’t reply to a video call had set everyone in clear panic, until Martha had laughed and later snapped them a photo of Toni sleeping deeply on a hammock. She had been covered with a green blanket and a grey cat had been curled up on the girl’s chest and Shelby had lost her voice for at least half an hour, twisting fingers craving to return back to the photo and look at it.

Four years later, sometimes, Shelby returned to look at this photo.

She thanked God for Martha Blackburn and the love the girl had for snapping photos of her best friend.

-

“ _Dot, this friend of yours, you seem close_ ”.

“ _Reporters seem to ask more about one specific girl, Shelby. What is up with that?”_

 _“Honey, maybe you should think of spending some time with Andrew? The boy came over two times already. Your friend, Dot, is not going anywhere and we don’t believe it is healthy to spend so much time with her. Why don’t you try to build back your old life?_ ”

That same afternoon of May, when green looked exceptionally more captivating, Shelby had packed up a bag with the darkest clothes she could find in her colorful closet and, without a look behind her shoulder, announced she would be moving out for the time being. The reporters outside had been enough to keep Dave Goodkind from trying to stop her and after a pageant winning smile and a tilt of her red baseball cap, Shelby had walked the way to Dottie’s house.

Dottie had answered the front door hesitantly, as if expecting someone else, but at the sight of her in a cap and a hoodie and sweatpants, she’d seemed to melt completely, taking a hold of Shelby’s shoulder and bring her close in a tight embrace. An embrace that had managed to let loose something very twisted and suffocating from around Shelby’s lugs.

Curled up in Dot’s old childhood bed, Shelby had stared at the posters on the walls and the rays the moon light created on the floor. Green eyes had been unable to close – aching and dry and bloodshot, a headache drilling through her skull and a foot kicking at her lungs with no mercy. Her fingers hadn’t stopped twisting since leaving the Goodkind’s house and they had now hurt with cramps.

It had been around 3am that night, when Toni had called, sounding as exhausted as Shelby felt. There had been so many unread messages on Messenger that Shelby couldn’t read due to the tears and the pain in her heart, and for the moment Shelby had worried she’d missed something, for Toni to call so late. But the other girl’s raspy voice had said something about seeing a photo Dottie sent them and if Shelby was okay.

“ _I will be_ ”.

“ _I know you will. What you did was brave_ ”.

“ _Brave_?” Shelby’s voice had cracked.

“ _I mean, yeah, removing yourself from a shitty situation like that, huh, it is brave_ ”. A beat of silence. “ _But it would have been better if you called us to fly down to Texas and kick your dad’s homophobic ass, but like, you do whatever you’re comfortable with, you know all seven of us would be right there in like a day_ ”.

The laughter had been deep and tearful and there had been no joy in its sound, but it had kind of let out some of the hurt that had settled like dust in Shelby’s lungs.

“ _What am I going to do, Toni?_ ”

“ _You will listen to me pass out on the phone because like, I cannot keep my eyes open in any way_ ”.

“ _Did you sleep last night_?” Shelby had closed her eyes and let the hurt be overcome by the protectiveness and care her heart held for these girls – and this girl in particular.

“ _No, not much, I need to get out of this house_ ”.

“ _Okay, go to sleep. I’ll be right here_ ”.

“ _Yeah, good night_ ”.

“ _Sweet dreams_ ”.

Toni had fallen asleep soon after that, the sound of her steady breathing echoing through the speaker and for a moment, Shelby had closed her eyes and thought of being back on a beach, covered with a thin jacket and pressed close to Toni’s side, watching the dancing flames of the fire and listening to her girl breathing quietly.

She hadn’t slept the night of that beautiful May, but in the morning, she’d rose from the bed around seven and felt just a bit lighter at not finding her Father in the kitchen and drinking his tea while reading the day’s newspaper. Instead, Shelby had busied herself with making _thank you_ pancakes for Dottie and washing the many unwashed dishes her friend resented.

“ _I am opening a coffee shop_ ”, Dottie had said later that morning as she passed Shelby a mug of steaming espresso. The little comment had been enough for the bloodshot eyes to look up – surprised and awed.

“ _You are?_ ”

“ _Yeah, I don’t really want to touch that money more than I already have. I mean,_ I will _use them to open it up in the beginning, but I don’t want to build my life on that, you know?_ ”

Shelby did. There was just something so dirty about the amount of cash in their bank accounts, something so very taunting and unethical, mocking them of the way they’d still be stuck in their old lives without the Island or the Bunker or those Funds. Shelby didn’t want it.

She had gulped and shifted on unsteady feet under the kitchen’s doorway, looking at Dot move around the room with familiarity. “ _You want another pair of hands to help_?”

Dottie had smiled a grin so wide that Shelby had almost starting crying again.

-

Once the reporters left for good, she had drove thirty minutes to get to the church. Had stayed put for around two hours in the front seat of the car, just staring at the entrance and the proud rainbow flag wavering in the air just outside. Hands tight around the steering wheel and breath shaky, _Dave’s_ words of this sinful ground had managed to echo in her head. Like hands reaching inside her chest, they had ripped at her heart with strength and Shelby wondered how so many of God’s people were filled with so much resentment, when He spoke of unconditionally kindness and love.

“ _I… I don’t hate anyone_ ”.

_What a fucking joke those words had been._

Her father had never loved Shelby – not the real Shelby at least, whoever that was here. Shelby had only met her on a deserted Island and inside an underground Bunker and during a tiresome round of trials. She had met her just like she had met those seven other angels God had put in her path. And around them, it’d been obvious that only something flawless was damaged and cracked.

“ _Like any flaw, if you have the means to fix it, you should_ ”.

_Fuck his hateful preaching words. Fucking fuck, fuck._

In her car, Shelby had pushed her tongue on the dentures to push them loose and slowing reached inside her mouth to look at the small object that once seemed to haunt her soul.

Today had been her birthday and she had left her phone home with Dottie to take this trip to this church, telling Dot she’d be back soon and to let the girls know she was alright. For some reason, this had felt like something she had had to do herself, a mental fight between just her and the hateful words in her mind. The girls would be there after, to pick up whatever pieces remained after the battle, and stick them back together into something that looked and sounded and acted like Shelby, but wasn’t really her.

Just the thought of getting out of the car had sent her heart cracking through thick bones and solid muscles and raw skin to drop right there on the concrete sidewalk, like a fish out of the water.

But she had had to do this and not just for herself.

Becca deserved this too and Shelby owned it to her.

The thought had gotten Shelby out of the car and for once, Becca’s soul hadn’t been hovering, because this had been something Shelby had to deal with alone.

It had felt icy cold to step on the path to the doorway, marble and grass gently coaxing her forwards.

 _‘All Are Welcome’_ had been written on a small board right next to the wall, the background made of the same colors as the rainbow flag that had kept dancing proudly above Shelby’s head. Nearly a year ago, on a trip down the seemingly endless beach, Toni had once explained the colors and history of the flag, but, at that moment, Shelby had been too captivated by the brown eyes to really register the important words. It had been a simple tug of a hand to have Toni’s body turning towards her and an even easier movement to lean down and softly kiss her girl under the burning sun.

Shelby had stepped in the cool interior of the church and had to sit down on the nearest stand because the room had been painfully familiar and so very welcoming. There had been no way to approach the front of the nave so soon and Shelby tacked herself closer to the edge of the stand to look around, ready to bolt as soon as it might feel like. A few people had been seated closer to the front, some alone and some in small groups, talking quietly and at ease, and the sight of them had made Shelby dizzy. The bare walls had been painted in a soft white color, raising a lot higher than Shelby had expected.

Some tension had slipped from her shoulders.

She had spent the day right there, _until it had been time to get home and spent time with the girls and Dot_ , seated on the back and listening to the people chatter quietly to one another as if they were friends. Her head had been lowered the whole time – sometimes in thankful prayers, sometimes just to let the tears fall freely, and so nobody had come to her.

Until she had stood and moved to the door.

A man had appeared there then, a kind smile on his face and his blue eyes reminding Shelby of Leah and he had asked if everything had been alright. He’d been young, maybe a couple of years older than Shelby and – she would later learn that his name was Jake – his blonde hair had been as messy as Shelby’s were in the morning.

He had invited her back any time she’d feel ready – as if he had known what emotions jumped around her gut. He had said of how he was one of the pastors in this church and he had passed her a card and had smiled, when she’d slowly nodded.

Shelby had returned one more time that week, and then, she never stopped visiting.

-

A year into working for Dottie, Shelby genuinely smiled more than ever before in her life in Texas. People knew of her from before the news broke out and, after, it had seemed like _everyone_ knew of her and Dot. The coffee shop had been bombarded in a way they had not expected – the work crazy and nerve-wracking and exhausting, but after Dot had managed to keep reporters and the press away from it with a few glares and her unique way of shutting down anything moving out of line, it had returned back on track.

So the reporters did not come back again – _because Dottie seemed to have a sixth ability of spotting them out right away_ – and due to the realization they wouldn’t get any kind of comments from the two girls about the _Dawn of Eve_. Work slowed down into something steady, after people also lost their interest on the scandalous case, and the two of them managed to make the coffee shop stand on its feet just perfectly, the domestic and cute shop becoming a known place in the middle of the city.

Dottie stayed behind the counter most of the time, sharing her knowledge for the amazing espresso with Shelby and trusted her to make it just perfect, so she could hide in the back room with all the management books during the afternoons. Being a waitress hadn’t been something Shelby had ever thought of doing after turning eighteen but she indeed found something soothing in the way she interacted with both young and older people. Most of their regulars were employees of the companies laying around the coffee shop, all of them seemingly having a soft spot for the records playing in the speakers and the vintage interior of the place. People were kind enough to make Shelby’s job relatively easy and they always tipped enough for both Dottie and Shelby.

The blonde had been working afternoon behind the counter, a few tables occupied by known faces – two college students bickering over their shared project, an old man who laughed all too loud and adored the shop’s disk collection and library, a woman in her early forties who typed away on a laptop, a gay couple Shelby had befriended in the church’s community kitchen and who found a safe spot in their coffee shop. It had been an easy day and Shelby had been cleaning their coffee machine, when the door opened and hot air broke the coolness of the air-conditioner. She had looked up behind her shoulder, readying a smile and a welcome, when her green eyes had caught familiar brown and everything in her body had locked tight.

Jill had offered a stained smile and there had been just something over her mom that Shelby quickly let go of the rag she had been using to step away from behind the counter.

A turning point – that afternoon had been then.

The next time her mom had come back, she had been more relaxed and open and the twins – _both of them so much taller now and all grown up and young teenagers_ – had screamed as soon as they saw Shelby and they had fallen in love with Dottie right the moment she let out a loud curse at something stupid behind the counter, covering up the _Fuck_ with a sneaky wink at them.

It had been a rough divorce to get, but Shelby hadn’t been more glad to have her mom back, looking at her with an apology and an eagerness to relearn her – the real her.

Shelby had sat on the front stand in church that day, soaking up in last of the gentle sunlight that spilled from the windows, thanking whoever was up there to hear her.

-

The four years passed by without any of them really realizing it. Work had turned into a nice routine, living with Dottie had been perfectly balanced – _if five years ago someone told them they’d be living and working together Shelby would have laughed and Dot would have punched them_ – and when Shelby had brought up the idea of her moving out, Dottie had frowned and shrugged, all the while telling her _not yet_ with her gaze.

 _Not yet_.

As if Dottie had been waiting for something.

And so Shelby stayed.

Everyone did well, and they never cut off ties, having been through too much together to do so. Fatin was the main link of every interaction, calling and texting and demanding group video calls every time one of them went through something. Rachel surprisingly teased the most and managed to convince everyone to push another step forward to whatever they hesitated to do and introduced them to all the children she was coaching five days a week. Nora seemed to have found some peace with herself and backed up Rachel’s humor with her own, slowly starting to ease with the thought of asking for help herself. Martha found a kind person named Sam, who the girls met once over a video call and fell in love with them right away, Sam’s gender and sexuality sending Shelby through another path of getting to know the community and history she settled in herself. Leah published a book early on, so well written and with so much depth that Shelby cried more than enough times while reading it.

And Toni had also found some peace. She smiled more on the camera, and called more than anyone else, to get to know how everyone was doing, listening and laughing and looking completely and utterly eased in her new house they’d started to love through the girl’s words, despite never having visited. She’d found a job at the cinema and played basketball in a community center during the weekends and complained about the therapist she kept visiting two times a week.

Every couple of days, Shelby would found herself smiling at the screen of her phone with a picture of Toni’s latest hike in the woods behind her home, the colors beautiful and the sky looking gorgeous and the lake just so calm and peaceful. Martha kept sending them pictures of Toni sleeping on various places in her new house in the city, the constant exhaustion seemingly never having left Toni, despite most of her life being good.

Four years and they never visited anyone. Except, two years ago, a shocking selfie came out of the blue from Leah and Fatin grinning at the camera with Fatin’s apartment in the background – the rest of them hadn’t really gotten out of the States they were living to visit. There had been points when they could plan it and meet up; Fatin’s very first solo in the Los Angeles Opera, Leah’s first book publishing day, Dot’s party of the coffee shop’s three year birthday, Martha’s last day of intense physical therapy, Nora’s award in a science contest, the day Rachel finally got her prosthetic. Routine and work and found friends had taken a root and trapped them separated for a long while, but Shelby was sure there was going to be a day when their paths would meet again.

It wasn’t until Shelby took a break from work and let Dottie finish the shift alone, when she found her phone overflown by missed calls from every single one of the girls. Fatin didn’t pick up and it made her heart beat just a bit more as she reached Dot’s phone and clicked open the locked screen to find similar notifications written across it.

Icy panic raced through her nerves as shaky fingers pressed on Toni’s name, Shelby trying to keep her breathing steady when it started to ring for time that felt like an honest to God century and –

“ _Hey_ ”.

“There is like a million missed calls in both mine and Dot’s phones, what happened?” she rushed to ask, the panic not letting her mind catch on the ease of Toni’s voice.

There was silence on the other end of the line and it sounded like Toni was somewhere outside because the sound of a car passing kept drifting through the line and the people of people talking around Toni was also very clear, but Toni wasn’t answering and –

“Toni?” Shelby snapped; anxiety grasping at her throat as a million scenarios started to come up in her mind to slip down her head and get stuck in her throat like a knot of tangled nerves that kept expanding. “You there?”

“ _Hey, um, I’m here, sorry_ ”, Toni seemed to snap herself from whatever trace she’d found herself in and the raspy voice eased some of Shelby’s worry, “ _some agency called us and offered to make a documentary about our experience and if we agree to talk to them, they offered a trip back to the Island for the shooting_ ”.

Shelby… froze and she was sitting on the sand and staring at the crashing waves a few steps away, blood and dirt and mud still covering every inch of her body. The handle of the axe was on the ground and straight in Shelby’s line of blurred sight and the horror of what had just happened felt like permanent – felt like another ghost behind her shoulder. For a moment, she could hear Leah’s breaking voice asking _what are we going to do with the hand_ and Shelby felt bile crawling up her throat, coldness freezing her veins and making her body shake even more.

For a moment, Shelby was standing in front of Alex and Faber again, a gun heavy in her hand and her ankle hurting like a bitch, green eyes watching Toni struggling to breathe, lips turning blue as Alex kept squeezing and Faber was yelling at her to let go of the gun so they could continue the sessions. _The sessions._ Shelby remembered hearing his snarling voice taunting them of the way they couldn’t be let go, until the study was perfected and over and Shelby had rose the gun, squeezing the trigger and making Toni’s body collapse on the concrete ground, looking smaller than any time before, coughs and raw breaths echoing louder than the echo of the gunshot, Alex’s shocked eyes looking over at Shelby before he crumbled on the floor as well.

“ _I guess you and Dot just found out. And I kind of broke my phone and Martha is thinking about the fucking psycho again_ ”, Toni was mumbling on the other line, the words barely making it through Shelby’s mind.

The words came out slightly slurred as she leaned on the table behind her. “Y-You broke your phone?”

“ _Don’t sound so surprised, Shelbs_ ”.

She wasn’t surprised and the teasing tone of Toni’s voice cleared some of the fog in her mind, making her blink and let out a chuckle. “I’m not… actually surprised. So that is some news. I would feel a pang of sympathy for whoever called you, but, huh –” her voice lost its strength and quietened.

“ _It was a shit reason to call?_ ” Toni’s raspy voice chuckled and Shelby nodded to herself, looking down at her worn out shoes.

“Yeah… Yeah”.

“ _You okay?_ ”

 _No._ Shelby cleared her throat, letting a hand push through silk, shoulder-length, blonde hair. “I’m… yeah, I am still processing. You weren’t kind when dropping the bomb, were you?”

“ _No, huh, sorry, but the boom wouldn’t be any kinder, even if I was_ ”.

 _Smartass…_ “True”.

Silence filled the line for a few minutes, Shelby staring at the wall in front of her, green eyes tracing the few posters Dot had put up in here just for them. There was a picture of the eight of them between them, a selfie Fatin had insisted on the last day of the trials and in the FBI’s safe house. It was after a last round of ‘Never Have I Ever’ and, with the shits they had been through, the eight of them had ended up drunk and crying-laughing through the whole night.

“You know”, Shelby mumbled without meaning to in the silence between them, “there’s this one customer who comes in every afternoon ever since Dottie opened up the shop. Clint, I do not think we have ever talked to you guys about him, but he is a regular and likes expresso with cream and so much sugar; the thing is disgusting. I don’t know, he’s never asked about what happened to us, despite knowing, you know. I don’t think people like him would like a documentary, but at the same time…”

“ _Hey, um_ ”, Toni interrupted and Shelby blinked, hearing something big and serious hiding underneath the stammering words. When Toni thought of something like this, she needed to get it out as soon as possible, like it was going to choke her completely in the end and, Shelby fell silent, closing her eyes and letting a tiny smile break on the surface, because, four years and Toni was still the same when it came to something she cared about.

“ _I think you should take a trip up here_ ”.

Oh.

Well.

Apparently, four fucking years and Toni still had the ability to leave Shelby completely fucking speechless.

“W-What? I’m sorry, what?”

“ _I would like you to buy a plane ticket and come to Minnesota_ ”, Toni continued and it was confident and raspy and Shelby felt her breathing catch somewhere in her lungs and turn into burning heat that spread everywhere through her body.

“Just… Just like that?”

“ _After four years, I think it is time_ ”, Toni easily pointed out and Shelby had to suck in another deep breath because, _apparently_ , oxygen wasn’t enough in this goddamned room.

“ _Or we could… we could go wherever you like, I mean, nothing ties me here. Martha will be happy to have me out of that house and being with someone, you know?_ ”

Shelby could not fucking stop blinking at the empty space in front of her, like a useless person and this _had not_ been the way she’d expected this conversation to go. But at the same time, something content settled inside her at the prospect and –

“You want to be with me?”

“ _I do_ ”.

Oh.

Oxygen was overrated.

“It’s been a long time, Toni”.

“ _Does it matter?_ ”

Dear Lord, this woman was going to be the death of her. Shelby let out a breathy chuckle – more like an exhale than a sound of laughter, and felt herself softening completely.

“I will come to you?”

Toni seemed to pause for a moment. “ _You will?_ ”

“Yes, give me two days to short out the goodbyes”. Her mom and siblings had to know before she packed up and left, she needed to help Dottie find a replacement for the coffee shop. “Nothing ties me here either and you actually have your own house”.

“ _For… For real?_ ” Toni mumbled and her raspy voice was colored by her familiar smile and Shelby laughed, happiness coursing down her body and easing every weight and every hovering ghost resting in her mind.

“For real”, she promised. “Should have happened sooner”.

Toni let out a breathy sound like a laugh. “ _Martha is gonna be ecstatic_ ”.

Shelby rolled her eyes and bit down a lip to contain the smile and leaned back on the table. “And you?” she softly challenged and Toni laughed again.

“ _Me? Oh, I love you so fucking much_ ”, she said and Shelby lost the battle of containing the joy she felt, a heartfelt laugh breaking out of her smiling mouth.

-

Dottie threw her head back and laughed, before patting (hard) on Shelby’s shoulder with a grin that light up the whole living room.

“I will drink to that!” she shouted, lifting a glass of beer and making Shelby laugh along at the obnoxious loudness of her friend. Their glasses clinked in the small space between them and their smiles widened even more, at the familiar to them sound. Drinking to something good and clinking their glasses like this had been their thing.

“Wait, we have to tell Fatin”.

“Dottie…”

“Shut up, shut up, I’m already calling her”.

It was late, but Fatin answered the video call in the second ring, her grinning face bathed in the light of her bedside lamb, a thin blanket pulled up to her chin and the woman’s glasses on her nose. She took one look at them drinking beer and eating the remaining pasta of their launch and let out a scandalous gasp.

“ _What are you, bitches, celebrating?!_ ”

“Why are you in bed so early?” Dottie narrowed her eyes instead and Fatin rolled her own eyes hard enough to probably hurt. “Do you have someone over?”

“ _…No_ ”.

“Fatin”, Shelby tried to deadpan the name, but failed miserably due to the laughter that escaped.

The girl on the screen rolled her eyes again, but it was softer and she bit her lips carefully before saying; “ _Fine, there is_ someone _here, but I’m not ready to tell you anything about it yet_ ”.

“Why?” Dottie smirked and even in the darkness Shelby could see a blush start to cover their friend’s face.

“ _It might be serious_ ”.

Shelby laughed with even more joy and Dot joined her, their glasses clinking again in another celebratory toast. Fatin grinned back at them, moving to sit up and bit and all the while sending glances off the camera.

“ _So, what_ were _you celebrating before_ my _amazing news?_ ”

Shelby bit her lip and Dottie smirked again and before Shelby was able to open her mouth and reply –

“ _OH MY GOD!_ ” Fatin was screaming and shooting out of the bed with eyes wide. “ _Toni asked you to move to Minnesota, didn’t she?_ ”

Shelby’s jaw fell open and she was left staring at the laughing woman in the laptop’s screen, all the while Dottie melted in equal loud laugher next to her. “How in God’s name did you guess that?”

“ _Please, I have been expecting it ever since she bought that house, are you kidding. Oh my God, this is the best news I’ve gotten this damn decade!_ ”

“Dramatic much”, Shelby chuckled and took a gulp of her beer _and she could not stop smiling_.

“ _When are you going?_ ”

“Ah, in two days…”

Fatin laughed. “ _U-Hauling much_ ”.

“Fuck off”.

“ _No seriously, about time, you guys, I mean four years? I was ready to propose it for you a year ago_ ”.

“She really was”, Dottie chuckled, eyes on the TV, but hyperaware of the conversation.

“You two talk about me and Toni?”

“ _Please_ ”, they cockily answered at the same time with equal hysterical chuckles, before falling in a chaotic chatter of retelling relevant inside jokes only the two of them truly got.

Shelby shook her head at them, leaning back on the couch and letting her green eyes to stare at the ceiling. The joy had yet to leave her body and excitement coursed through her nerves like static energy, leaving her giddy with the feeling. The smile had started to hurt her cheeks by now, but she didn’t mind. _She’d be with Toni soon_.

“ _Oh my, Dorothy, keep an eye out because the girl seems ready to pass out due to the happiness_ ”.

Shelby laughed and Dottie patted gently at her knee with a proud grin and soft, joyful eyes.

“What am I doing, guys?” Shelby pressed a hand on her forehead and laughed yet again. She was getting delirious. “It has been four years, what do I do, oh my God, do I kiss her? Do I hug her? What _do I do?_ ”

“Jesus Christ, dude”, Dottie burst into laughter again.

“ _You stop being a useless lesbian, trying doing that for now_ ”, Fatin rolled her eyes, but laughed as well. “ _You two have maintained the most factional long-distance relationship I have ever seen in my life. You’ll be fine_ ”.

Shelby picked her head up and frowned. “We are not in a relationship”, she pointed out and it sent the two girls into another fit of hysterical laughter.

“ _Oh, honey, you have been falling asleep on the phone together for the past four years_ ”.

“And you say I love you and mean it as if it is the easiest fucking thing to do”.

“ _I perfectly know that the trust you have for each other is out of this fucking world, dude, like I do not trust Dorothy from going and finding another best friend, you know. And like, you are way too sure Toni won’t be out there fucking like… I don’t know, Regan or whatever her name is_ ”.

The thought made bile start to turn in Shelby’s stomach, something very similar to a fire starting to sparkle up in her gut with… something. But at the same time, she knew that… They weren’t together, but at the same time the amount of trusting boundaries about… about talking when there was a chance that… No, Toni would have said something – when she and Regan went out for a coffee in the beginning after getting back to school, she had called Shelby and had… they had talked about it and –

 _Shit_.

She cleared her throat. “It’s complicated. We had agreed to just… be”.

“Y _ou did that fucking perfect; that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You pulled through four years exceptionally nice. I don’t remember you being in a fight in so long. Doritos versus popcorn had been the most serious one I think. The only thing missing from your relationship was the sex, but I am sure you will be getting right into fixing that problem as soon you are in Minnesota’s borders_ ”.

The words brought a laugh out of her, and Dottie suddenly yelled at Fatin that she was taking it from here before ending the call in the midst of Fatin’s shocked, screamed curses.

“What is Fatin was spectacularly failing so say is that, huh, you two had agreed to just be, because things were too complicated then. But your feelings for each other stayed and they grew and we’ve seen it, all six of us have seen it”. Dot patted at her knee again. “When you see her again, you will do whatever you feel right. Toni loves you so much, Shelbs”.

Shelby was nodding and this was emotional, but still managed to get out, “I love her too”.

Dottie smiled. “We know, dude. And we’re all so proud of you two”.

“Dottie, I’m – fuck, just… Thank you. For everything”.

Dot’s smile was understanding and the light in her eyes seemed eager to say something back, but, for now, she only nodded, accepting the words and holding them close to her heart like Shelby wanted her to.

The clink of the beer glasses was much softer this time.

-

Turning-points seemed to also have some base in real life – some constant or a small red flag to point out the beginning of something new. Just like on the Island, but there, the turning-points were marked by too much blood or an injury or a sickness; they were marked by fear and anxiety to fix up the unfixable. Damn mussels, a goat, a shark and an amputation, self-harming cut lines on a forearm, Martha’s body falling down a cliff and her spine cracking in half on stone. A sedative and twisted ankle, her throat closing up and cutting off her breathing and squeezing so very tight in the midst of the fire burning her lungs, broken glass cutting through shocks, a heavy gun and an axe and a Taser, leaving someone behind, their running feet splitting open on grass and dirt and rocks.

Turning-points and red warnings.

In real life, it always seemed to be a plane. A plane taking them to the Island, a plane taking them out of Florida, a plane taking them to different corners of the country, a plane taking Shelby home. It might be a turning-point, but it always brought fear after the first time – icy terror coursing through her muscles as she stepped in the narrow hallway between rows of seats of three.

She sat on a seat and at least, she wasn’t trapped to the wall. A girl around her age was seated next to her, headphones in and a book opened in her lap and she looked so much like Leah that Shelby’s heart started to pound with the need for one of the girls to talk her down. Her fingers had picked up twisting again and she felt eighteen again and being scared shitless on a plane like this one, Dot on one side and her father on the other.

Leah had suggested a sleeping pill.

Shelby regretted not taking one.

_It was going to be over soon._

It became the only chatter in her mind after the first half hour, the engine softly roaring in her ears and her fingers tightening more and more around the armrests with each slight rocking movement the plane made. At some point, the girl next to her had noticed and had taken off her headphones and read the stupid book to Shelby out loud, making another fine distraction in this flying coffin and somehow managing to ease just a bit of tension from her shoulders – only for it to return five times harsher than before as soon the plane started to lower for landing.

The jolt of the wheels touching the ground was eased and Shelby sent a thankful prayer for the pilot, while the rest of the passengers clapped and whooped victoriously and laughed for the careful landing. Shelby thanked the girl next to her and rushed to get out of the tight space and breathe in some open air and make sure she wasn’t drugged or anything.

Minnesota’s night was colder than Shelby expected and the breaths cut through her lungs gently, making her tug the jacket closer to herself with the hand not holding the phone. She followed the small crowd to the baggage carousel for the one suitcase holding everything Shelby owned. By the time it was rolled out, her heart had found a mostly steady rhythm of beating, and her cramped fingers had eased their twisting movements, a headache softly pounding against the interior of her skull as the tension released from her body.

The airport’s lobby, which led to the main exit, was packed with people waiting to pick up their travelling companions and it was not long before the green eyes zeroed in on Toni among them, the girl standing a bit to the back and glaring at the blank board with the arrivals on the side.

Without meaning to, Shelby paused midst step, rooted on the floor as she blatantly stared. Toni looked so much older, wavering long hair pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head, hands buried in the pockets of her mother’s jacket, dark grey sweatpants hugging her legs and ended on a pair of familiar old black Vans with white lashes. In a way, her jaw looked more prominent, her eyes had lost some of their old hardness and gentle dark bugs resting underneath them. Shelby felt her breath cut off – _again_ – when the brown eyes shifted on her, as if Toni felt Shelby’s gaze.

Eyebrows shot up and her mouth parted in surprise at finding Shelby there, and then – Toni broke out in a loud wave of laughter, her dark eyes closing and head tilting down and to the side, the joyful full sound sending heat all over Shelby’s body and enough energy to find herself walking closer to the girl, who breathlessly let out the raspy chuckles.

“Are you seriously wearing cargo pants?” Toni laughed, brown eyes sparkling and smile painted with her chuckles and Shelby rolled the suitcase to a stop next to her before reaching up for Toni’s face.

Shelby swore she was able to taste Toni’s laugh in the kiss.

The other girl completely melted against her, hands clasping around the curve of Shelby’s sides and lower back, bringing her closer and for a moment, they stayed there, next to the bright blue electronic board that didn’t seem to work, their lips gently moving after four long years of distance and endless long phone calls.

Toni slowly finished the kiss, but Shelby leaned in again for one more. A much shorter one that tried to seal something between them, before Shelby straightened back up to take in the brown eyes that slowly blinked open – perfectly dazed and as gentle as Shelby remembered them.

“You look so much gayer than me, it’s not even fair”, Toni hoarsely mumbled and Shelby was the one laughing this time, a hand reaching up to fix the black beanie that had kind of earned its place on her head, even after the blonde hair grew longer.

“I thought cargo pants are not our uniform”, Shelby grinned down at her and Toni seemed to lose her voice for a second, before a grin blew up across her face.

“You got the swag, babe”.

Oh, dear God.

Oxygen.

Overrated.

Toni smirked and Shelby laughed and they reached out at the same time. The hug was made of hands and fingers tightening around clothes, arms wrapping around shoulders and waists and backs and bringing the two of them so very close, almost to the point of Shelby being able to feel the racing heart in the other girl’s chest.

“Let’s go home”, Toni whispered against the side of her neck and Shelby felt a couple of tears slipping out.

She looked up at the half moon in the Minnesota’s night sky, and thanked God for this girl by her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment, tell me your thoughts on this.
> 
> I love all of you, I claim you as my kids.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment. Tell me. I'm nervous and hesitant with this.
> 
> Update; your excitement for this is like craazy, guys, it was the best welcome in the fandom to be honest. So here, there is gonna be another chapter, but I cannot promise when it is gonna come out because exams are a real bitch, you guys.
> 
> I love every single one of you. I'm gonna go cry for a while, overwhelmed by the love 😭


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